Workers should be involved in setting top executives' pay as part of a move to a fairer society as a result of the economic crisis, Britain's leading trade unionist has urged.

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, warned that as job losses mounted there could be more "outbursts of real anger" such as the sit-ins at plants of Visteon, the car parts maker, and recent strikes at oil refineries.